The letter exchange of Augustine and Jerome has been characterized as an instance of ‘‘two highly civilized men conducting with studied courtesy, a singularly rancorous correspondence. They approach each other with elaborate gestures of Christian humility. They show their claws, for an instant, in classical allusions, in quotations from the poets which the recipient would complete for himself. Neither will give an inch’’ (Brown 2000: 271). One of Jerome’s modern biographers, J. N. D. Kelly, is less generous in his assessment of the correspondence’s difficulties. Jerome, says Kelly, was ‘‘morbidly suspicious and ready to take offence’’ (Kelly 1975: 264). The correspondence, such as it was, endured on and off until Jerome’s death in ad 420. Eighteen letters are extant, eleven of which (six by Augustine and five by Jerome) date to the tumultuous first phase of the epistolary relationship (Hennings 1994 and Furst 1999 are useful for navigating the difficulties of chronology and content in the correspondence).
Augustine had a lot to gain by establishing a letter exchange with the famous translator of the Vulgate. ‘‘Jerome was nothing if not well-, if often acerbically, connected,’’ remarks James O’Donnell, ‘‘and by coming into communication with Jerome Augustine was linking up with a ‘textual community’ of no small importance’’ (O’Donnell 1991: 14). By ad 394 Jerome had already networked with two well-connected North African Caecilianists - Aurelius and Alypius (Aug. Ep. 27 ; 28). Augustine knew of these relationships and, we might imagine, wanted a part in the conversation. Jerome, on the other hand, probably had little sense of Augustine. If he had known anything of him in Rome (both were there in the early ad 380s), it was as an ambitious and talented but provincial North African Manichee looking for a career in the capital city. From Alypius and Aurelius he might have learned of Augustine’s conversion and baptism into Ambrose’s church in Milan. Given Jerome’s feelings about Ambrose after his expulsion from Rome in ad 385, however, that particular connection would hardly have endeared Augustine to Jerome (McLynn 1994: 289).
Probably in ad 394 or 395 (the date is imprecise), Augustine composed a letter (Ep. 28) to Jerome, to be delivered by Profuturus, a long-time companion who had settled with him in Hippo. Augustine was not shy about introducing himself to influential men (for example, Hierus, Symmachus, and Ambrose) who might further his aspirations and enhance his reputation. Typically, someone in Augustine’s position would ask a mutual acquaintance (Aurelius, Alypius) to mediate with a letter of introduction. In his initial letter to Jerome, however, Augustine suggests that such an introduction is unnecessary, both because he is familiar with Jerome’s writings and because Alypius has described him in such detail: ‘‘Never has physical presence made anyone as well known to someone else as your peaceful joy and truly liberal pursuit of your studies in the Lord has made you known to me... After brother Alypius, now a most blessed bishop but then already worthy of the episcopacy, saw you and, returning here, was seen by me, I cannot deny that your physical presence was to a large extent impressed upon me by his report’’ (Ep. 28. 1. 1). In any case, continues Augustine, he and Alypius are essentially interchangeable: ‘‘For anyone who knows us may say of him and me that in body only, and not in mind, we are two, so great is the union of heart, so firm the intimate friendship subsisting between us.’’ The overwhelmingly formulaic nature of Augustine’s sentiments may well have led Jerome to conclude that this was a typical fan letter from a correspondent eager to flatter him and perhaps hoping to persuade him to send copies of his writings.
But this was no typical fan letter. Augustine presumes on his busy correspondent by forcing an unsolicited conversation: ‘‘I ought perhaps to write no more if I were willing to content myself with the style of a formal letter of introduction. But my mind overflows into conference with you concerning the studies with which we are occupied’’ (Ep. 28. 1. 1). Augustine specifically has in mind a textual conversation in the presence of the divine, permeated with the spirit of Christian caritas. In practice, such ‘‘conferences’’ with absent interlocutors frequently centered on the act of biblical interpretation - a subject of special interest to Augustine throughout the 390 s (Vessey 1993). Whereas Jerome adhered to his Origenist-influenced view that scriptural study was a ‘‘science’’ (scientia) best left to trained experts, Augustine believed that it was the purview of any believing Christian eager to learn (August. De doctr. chr., prol. 1). In his letter exchange with Jerome, we find traces of the Apologia contra Hieronymum that Mark Vessey has uncovered in De doctrina christiana and the Confessions (Vessey 1993: 175-213).
Augustine concluded his letter of introduction to Jerome by questioning the scholar’s translation methods and taking issue with his figural explication of Paul’s rebuke of Peter in Galatians 2: 11-14. The meaning of this passage had long been debated. Jerome, by his own admission, had largely followed Origen and the Greek exegetes in his Latin commentary on Galatians (Plumer 2003: 33-53). Briefly, he suggested that the younger apostle’s rebuke of Peter was a performance for the benefit of the erring Galatians. Augustine challenged this reading and argued that it undermined scriptural authority and introduced falsehood into the Scriptures (Ep. 28. 3. 4-5). The North African Caecilianist undoubtedly feared that Jerome would unwittingly offer his Manichaean opponents ammunition for their campaign against scriptural authority. Perhaps the immediacy of this threat to the Caecilianist Christians motivated Augustine to abandon traditional epistolary decorum and demand a retraction from Jerome, despite (rightly) fearing that he would be judged ‘‘burdensome and impudent’’ (28. 3. 5).
Augustine tried to model for Jerome the proper response to correction when he enclosed some unspecified writings and demanded that Jerome read them with ‘‘severe judgment’’ (28. 4. 6). Likewise, citing Scripture, he reminded Jerome that ‘‘the one who heals with his reproaches shows more love than a flatterer who anoints the head’’ (28. 4. 6). Augustine realized that he had broken the rules by importing censure into a letter that so explicitly invoked the codes of friendship letters, but hoped that he could excuse his misbehavior as normative in the context of Christian ideology. It can hardly be a coincidence that the letter’s contents - a junior apostle’s censure of a senior apostle - precisely mirrors Augustine’s treatment of Jerome. Augustine implies that, just as Peter humbly accepted Paul’s public rebuke, so should Jerome address his own errors in full view of the Christian literary community. The gaze of the Christian community is an essential aspect of Augustine’s Pauline conception of correction. The more traditional Jerome, as we will see, did not share this outlook.
The letter’s carrier, Profuturus, barely made it past the city gates of Hippo before he was conscripted as bishop of Cirta. There is no suggestion that he made arrangements for the letter to be conveyed to Bethlehem. A later letter from Augustine to Profuturus (Ep. 39) indicates that Profuturus was alive until at least the middle of AD 397 and that Augustine knew his messenger had been waylaid. Augustine would defend his lapse by claiming that Profuturus died shortly after becoming bishop (Ep. 71. 1. 2); the evidence nevertheless suggests that Augustine had ample time to arrange for another copy of the letter to be delivered. Instead, near the end of ad 397, he composed a new letter (Ep. 40) reiterating his disagreement with Jerome’s interpretation of Galatians 2: 11-14. Augustine’s choice of Paulus as carrier once again disappointed. Afraid of the dangers of a sea voyage, Paulus remained in Italy. To make matters worse, not only did Paulus fail to pass the letter on to another carrier - he even allowed it to circulate publicly around Italy as a book ( liber) written against Jerome.
By labeling Augustine’s text a liber (treatise, pamphlet), Jerome underscores his point that Augustine did not have a proper understanding of epistolary convention (Ep. 72.4). The liber, after all, was the traditional form for censure. Ep. 40 eventually made its way to Jerome, but only because a deacon, Sysinnius, made a copy (72. 1. 1). Augustine swiftly apologized for the misdirected letter and assured Jerome that the rumors of a Liber contra Hieronymum were false. Still, his unconventional behavior aroused Jerome’s suspicions. That Jerome exhibited what has uncharitably been characterized as an ‘‘irascible refusal to be drawn into discussion’’ should not astonish us (Kelly 1975: 263). As far as Jerome was concerned, Augustine’s letter was a ‘‘sword dripping with honey’’ (litus mellegladius, 72. 1. 2).
Jerome did eventually respond to Augustine’s request for conversation, but pointedly refused to defend his interpretation of the Galatians passage. Instead, Jerome accused the North African of provoking him in order to parade his learning before the Christian elite: ‘‘But your wisdom well knows that everyone abounds in his own opinion and that it is puerile boasting to seek, as young men of old were in the habit of doing, fame for one’s own name by finding fault with famous men’’ (Ep. 68. 2). In particular, Jerome is irritated that Augustine allowed his censures to become public knowledge. He suspects that this was not accidental: ‘‘Some of my close friends. . . suggested to me that this had not been done by you in a guileless spirit, but seeking praise and celebrity and some smidgen of glory from other people, so that your reputation might grow at my expense and so that many men might know that you challenged me and that I was afraid of you’’ (Ep. 72. 1. 2; see Ebbeler, forthcoming, for a discussion of additional passages of this type). Finally, Jerome avers that Augustine’s suspect behavior has undermined the possibility of friendship: ‘‘true friendship can harbour no suspicion; a friend must speak to his friend as freely as to his second self’’ (Ep. 72. 1. 2). Jerome does not challenge the propriety of Augustine’s epistolary censures per se. Rather, he takes issue with Augustine’s motives for such a public form of rebuke, in the guise of a friendship letter.
Jerome’s history of interpersonal difficulties has encouraged readers of the correspondence to fault him for its breakdown. His outrage is far more comprehensible when understood in the context of traditional epistolary mores (Cain 2006: 500-525 makes a similar argument for the interpretation of Jerome’s early correspondence). Specifically, Jerome does not share the Augustinian conception of conference and correction. Like most classical and late antique letter-writers, Jerome believed that the censorious style should be limited to letters addressed to a despised rival. He agrees with Augustine that frankness and honesty are important to the practice of friendship; but he does not concur that it is therefore appropriate to censure a friend in a letter that could easily go astray.
The correspondence resumed only after Augustine soothed Jerome’s wounded ego with effusive flattery (Ep. 73. 2. 5; 82. 2). Augustine nevertheless persisted in his assertion that censure was appropriate to a friendship letter. In an effort to persuade Jerome, he modeled for his correspondent the proper way to receive a well-meaning rebuke from a fellow Christian: ‘‘I also shall most thankfully receive your rebuke as a most friendly action even though the thing censured may be defensible and therefore should not have been censured. Or else I will acknowledge both your kindness and my fault and will be discovered, so far as the Lord allows me, grateful for the one and corrected in the other’’ (Ep. 73. 2. 3).
Whereas Jerome saw criticism and friendship as incompatible, even if acceptable in the general practice of late antique friendship, Augustine implicitly argued that, if the Christian community is a ‘‘society of friends,’’ then there should be no distinction between the practice of friendship and the practice of letter exchange. To this end, he reminded Jerome of the standard philosophical aphorism, ‘‘our enemies who expose our faults are more useful than friends who are afraid to reprove us. For the former, in their angry recriminations, sometimes charge us with what we indeed require to correct; but the latter, through fear of destroying the sweetness of friendship, show less boldness on behalf of right than they ought’’ (73. 2. 4). David Konstan has demonstrated that Augustine’s view of flattery was widespread among late antique friendship theorists, Christian and pagan alike (Konstan 1997: 153-6). This does not prevent Augustine from citing Scripture as his source (and implying that Jerome’s resistance to correction is unchristian): ‘‘For I would hesitate to give the name of Christian to those friendships in which the common proverb, ‘flattery makes friends and truth makes enemies’’is of more authority than the scriptural proverb ‘‘faithful are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful’ ’’ (Ep. 82. 31).
In addition, by raising the specter of Rufinus, Augustine reminds Jerome (and the Christian community) of Jerome’s most spectacular failed friendship. Formerly bosom friends, Jerome and Rufinus had a serious falling-out during the Origenist crisis (Clark 1992: 159-93). Where once Rufinus had been a favorite correspondent whose absence Jerome lamented, he was now the recipient of Jerome’s literary vitriol, including the three-book Apologia contra Rufinum. Most painful to Jerome, however, was the extremely public demise of his friendship with Rufinus. When Augustine mentioned Rufinus (‘‘Where is the friend who may not be feared as possibly a future enemy, if the breach that we deplore could arise between Jerome and Rufinus?’’ Ep. 73. 3. 6), he did so in a deliberate effort to destroy Jerome’s credibility on the topic of Christian friendship.
Augustine concluded the letter by acknowledging that he and Jerome had different ideas regarding the role of correction in an epistolary friendship. He acknowledged Jerome’s resistance in one final plea for productive discussion:
If it is possible for us to examine and discuss anything by which our hearts may be nourished without any bitterness of discord, I entreat you to let us address ourselves to this task. But if it is not possible for either of us to point out what he may judge to demand correction in the other’s writings without being suspected of envy and regarded as wounding friendship, let us, having regard for our spiritual life and health, leave such conference alone. (Ep. 73. 3. 9)
Of course, as Jerome realized, he could not continue to ignore Augustine’s demands without serious risk to his scholarly reputation among his wealthy Gallic and Italian supporters (Kelly 1975: 269). Finally, nearly a decade after the composition of his Letter 28, Jerome responded with a detailed refutation of Augustine’s challenge to his reading of Galatians 2: 11-14 (Ep. 75). The precisely argued letter was clearly intended for wide public circulation, despite Jerome’s claim that he had dashed it off in three days (Ep. 75. 1. 1). In the end, Jerome complied with Augustine’s request for public debate despite his (valid) suspicions that his correspondent had deliberately rewritten traditional epistolary mores to justify the inclusion of censure in a letter that purported to be friendly.
Augustine’s introduction of censure into a friendship letter was not limited to his correspondence with Jerome. In his Letter 259, datable only to the episcopal period and addressed to a certain Cornelius who has been identified with Augustine’s North African patron Romanianus, Augustine returned to the topic of public correction among fellow Christians. Romanianus, who had once shepherded Augustine’s promising rhetorical career and remained on good terms with him even after Augustine’s conversion in Milan, had asked the bishop of Hippo for a letter of consolation that praised the virtues of his now dead wife Cypriana. Augustine refused to comply, accusing Romanianus of seeking flattery rather than consolation (Ep. 259. 1). He inveighed against Romanianus’ scandalous behavior (he had been dating other women) and urged him to correct his waywardness. As with Jerome, Augustine anticipated that Romanianus would feel abused. Consequently, he assured him that the censure was well-meaning and a product of their enduring friendship (259. 2). Indeed, Augustine reminded Romanianus, he had once corrected himself from the error of Manichaeism; there was nothing to deter Romanianus from correcting his own sexual deviancy.
Augustine even repeated the common argument that, among devout Christians who believed in resurrection and the promise of eternal life, letters of consolation were unnecessary. Romanianus should not grieve his dead wife but instead, should follow her example of chastity so that he might share in her salvation (259. 1, 5). In this way, Augustine figured his letter of censure as a substitute for a letter of consolation. The conflation of epistolary censure and consolation is attested as early as Cicero (Wilcox 2005); but Augustine put his own spin on the topic. Whereas Cicero’s friends censured his excessive grief for Tullia by reminding him of his public duties, Augustine encouraged Romanianus to live as a committed Christian. By motivating Romanianus to correct his sins, Augustine enabled him to console himself in his grief for eternity - something that mere words could not do. Finally, Augustine offered his correspondent a deal: he would ‘‘sell’’ Romanianus a eulogy for Cypriana if Romanianus would commit to chastity (259. 4).
We have no idea how Romanianus responded to this rather unusual letter of consolation, but we might imagine that he was not pleased to have his former dependant scrutinizing his behavior. He may also have worried that Augustine’s criticisms would cause him public humiliation, especially in light of Augustine’s visibility as the bishop of Hippo. Romanianus, however, certainly knew Augustine well enough to be acquainted with his verbal tricks and may well have taken a certain pleasure in his protege’s audacity.
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